Some news about Vinodiversity
and its blog, some news about wine, some great reading, a challenge and some
wine bargains.

I have been lax in sending out this newsletter, in fact it is
almost two months since the last issue. I hope a change in my work arrangements
will mean that I am able to give Vinodiversity more time such that I can get
the Newsletter out more regularly. Don't worry, I won't stuff you inbox.

Welcome especially to all of the new subscribers.
The growing list of subscribers and increasing traffic through the website is
very encouraging for me. The statistics confirm that there is considerable interest
in what Vinodiversity has to say. I would love to get more feedback from readers
but I realise that everyone is working flat out keeping up with all of their
labour saving devices.

Some new content on Vinodiversity. I have written a page on
Chenin blanc,
which is a much mistreated grape outside its favoured habitat of the Loire Valley.
There are good chenins available in Australia, I recently had a superb one from
St Leonards in Rutherglen.

John Vale of Vale Wines in Balnarring on the Mornington Peninsula
has written a great article on growing Durif
in a cool climate.

A challenge - how many wine varieties have you tried? Instead
of counting them on your fingers and toes you can keep track by using the chart
published by the Wine
Century Club to tally them up. The chart is available from Delong
company who also make a wonderful Wine Varieties Table.

If you have followed some of the links above you will notice
that they take you to the vinodiversity blog where all new materials to the
site are announced. A blog is a computer nerdy name for a website structured
like a log or journal with entries arranged in reverse chronological order.
So between newsletters you can see what has been happening at Vinodiversity,
and in the diverse wine world generally.

The Blog is
RSS enabled, so if you are into RSS you can paste this address into your reader

http://vinodiversity.blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you don't know
your RSS from your elbow, don't worry. Just bookmark the Vinodiversity blog
and return whenever you like. I will write a short tutorial on RSS soon.

AT LAST
THE BARGAIN WINES!

I have not yet
completed arrangements for our own little wine club yet, but in the meantime
our friends at WMC have a few great offers. Check
them our on the blog! While you are there sign up for the email
specials, there are often a few gems.